


Interlude (after the battle)

by Deanon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-10-30 13:30:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10877772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deanon/pseuds/Deanon
Summary: The memory of love can be more bitter than the loss of it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Don't think anyone's gonna read this who isn't in the DND session, but just in case: Nikolay brought back his presumed-dead girlfriend but in the process she became a heartless immortal being who cannot feel joy or love. Then they fought a dragon that technically (briefly) killed Nikolay and she reacted Very Badly. It's been a long month.

He woke in the middle of the night to an empty tent.  
  
The fear that flooded him was automatic, sparking before he could even fully register what was wrong. He sat up so fast his head hit the top of the tent, breathing in, and then coughing on the breath he meant to call out on as his chest ached -   
  
"I'm out here," Nadine's voice came from just outside.   
  
As his breath settled, he could see - her shadow, just a barely-visible silhouette on the outside of the tent. After the chaos of the moon-and-sun battle, the plain moonlight was barely filtering through the trees, leaving a heavy darkness on the campsite. By the time they'd retired to their tents at the first sign of dusk, he'd had no desire to defy Terrence by wandering around outside.   
  
It was a trepidation so strong that he almost didn't go out. Nadine did this nearly every night - sit alone, silent, away from him.   
  
He hated it. He hated how it felt like when she'd been slipping away, years before - or worse, how it had felt when she'd been standing in that cave, less than a shadow, barely recognizable. It was a sick dread swirling in his stomach.   
  
He tried, at least, to hate it where she couldn't see.   
  
They sat, separated by the tent walls, for a long moment. He stared at the shape of her. He stared at the other shadows that crept on the walls of the tent, things that didn't have a natural form, things that moved when the wind didn't. Images of the swirling, shadowed darkness swallowing him flashed in front of his eyes.   
  
He tightened his fists at the flash of fear.   
  
It was better to know.   
  
He opened the flap of the tent.   
  
Nadine hadn't gone far. Her back was pressed to the tent fabric, eyes trained on the darkness - barely flicking over to Nikolay when he emerged. He followed her gaze, but the creeping shadows didn't resolve into anything. Shapes that might have been animals and might have been something worse crept just beyond the line of trees. "You shouldn't be out here," Nadine said softly.   
  
"You are," Nikolay pointed out. He settled next to her, their arms pressing together. Her skin was cool to his touch, always. More so now than before. Probably a modified blood circulation, as she didn't have -   
  
His chest stuttered. His own heart ached.   
  
"The shadows know me," Nadine said, "and I know them. I'm not in danger out here."   
  
Nikolay blew out a breath. "Maybe - maybe not from them, but from the corruption itself, if you went out into the forest again it probably would - "   
  
"I'm not leaving, Nikolay," Nadine said, and it didn't have the note of fond exasperation in it that it would have ten years ago, but it still sounded so much like her that something in his chest loosened.   
  
She was here, and if not intact - if not intact, then at least some part of her remained. Some large part. Her mind. Her soul. The way she saw him in a way he could not see himself. Enough of her was here with him, and they'd figure out the rest.   
  
He watched the shadows and moonlight with her until she spoke again. "I was afraid, today."   
  
Her voice didn't shake but he heard the strain in it. He looked at her. She looked at the shadows. He wanted to ask, _Of the dragon? Of the basilisk? Of being trapped again?_ but he had a feeling he knew. Was afraid that he knew. (Jagged crystal edges ripping up from the ground through the trees with a roar, a broken thing between him and death.)   
  
He didn't think he had the courage to speak, but she had somehow found it, and so he pulled harder. His voice was barely audible. "Of what?"   
  
"Losing you." Her voice did shake, this time. He wanted to put an arm around her but was afraid of what he would do if she shook it off. "I didn't know if I still would be."   
  
That hurt. She knew that hurt. She said it because it hurt.   
  
Between them, her hand found his, and all the courage he had was channeled into not letting go.   
  
He knew that he wanted to say, _I'm sorry._ He knew, too, that she'd hate that. It was both not enough and too much. He'd gone up there to help Marsh, knowing the risks. He'd known his chances were low, but Nadine was stone and Marsh had tumbled, bloody, from the peaks and he could not just stand there, he could _not_ \-   
  
He'd do it again, knowing it scared her, the same way that she left his side every night and watched shadows, knowing they scared him. He'd bring her back again, knowing all that would be left of her love for him would be the fear of losing it. If these were the consequences, he would bear them, and hope that he hadn't left her with a burden too heavy to carry.   
  
She held tighter, and he didn't know why she did it, anymore. Practicality. Some lingering sentimentality, harbored more in habit than the affection she could no longer physically feel.   
  
He didn't know, but he swallowed his urge to ask and just squeezed back. For tonight, he would let this be enough.

"Come back inside," he said, finally, and - greatest miracle of a day filled with gods and death and dragons -   
  
She did. 


	2. coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If this is the vow she will let him make -

When he breaks away, for a few moments, he can’t speak. He’s never been so without words in his life - there is no analysis here, no knowledge to be gained. Too much knowledge to be gained.

 

He’d died. Nadine had nearly - and yet they were alive. They were alive and safe, in this foreign land, in this place he’d never meant to - and Nadine wasn’t - 

 

The idea coalesced and came out his mouth in the same moment, as it so often did. “Come back to Pesca with me.”

 

Her trembling hasn’t ceased. He holds her harder. He can’t protect her - he’s learned that, had it carved into him in the harshest way possible - but he can do this. There is no magic in his grasp, so he holds her together with his bare hands. She draws in a questioning breath.

 

“I spent - Nadine.” His voice is so hoarse. Behind them, the aftermath of the battle is still happening. Rubble crumbles from the ceiling, the walls, the fallen pillars. “My - “ his voice catches. He wishes he didn’t know. When he didn’t know, he could still - “ _ My _ love.” He makes his voice not shake. He almost succeeds. “I - ten years. I spent ten years looking for you. It - this - the corruption that took you, it was my life’s work. Nadine. I thought of you  _ every day _ .”

 

The idea of looking at her is petrifying. It is impossible. So many things today have been impossible; somehow, he does this one more. He draws back, sees her face - meets her eyes by accident. It hurts. Everything hurts. Something deep in them is still red, still beyond his touch, still beyond his ability to save.

 

But she’d been further gone than this, before. She’d been a specter, she’d been next to dead - she’d  _ been _ dead. (Something they had in common now, then.) She was here. They were both here.

 

The rims of her eyes are still the deep blue they were when she lived, and breathed, and loved him.

 

(She will never love him again.

 

He breathes until the pain passes.)

 

“Ten years, searching for you, searching for the cure to the - to the foul thing we brought down today. Together.” He puts a hand on her cheek. “Give me - twice that.”

 

It’s not what he meant to say. He meant to ask for ten. Got greedy. Knowing - he knows what he has to do, knows what clock he is fighting against now, and knowing that, he  _ needed _ to give himself more time.

 

“W - for - Nikolay?” Nadine whispers.

 

“Twenty years,” Nikolay whispers. “Give me twenty years - give  _ us _ twenty years. Come back to Pesca with me. For you - for Eliza - for all of those affected by the pool. Twenty years to research it. Maybe not even half that. Nadine, give me - I know that this is terrible. I cannot imagine. But if you can hang on for twenty years - “ The breath he draws in comes in unsteady. He realizes he is crying. He is not sure when he  _ started _ crying. “I did not - ever imagine. I thought the best I would get to do was purify the corruption, lay your spirit to rest. To have you again - even for this long - it is more than I imagined. It is possible. I know it is possible for us to fix this.”

 

She is looking at him. So much passes between them, unspoken. Her trembling, slowly, is fading. He doesn’t let go of her, cannot even loosen his grasp. She’s still cold. “And after twenty years?” She says.

 

He has to say it. He  _ has to _ . If this is the vow she’ll let him make - “After twenty years, we’ll go to Cupid.” He feels sick. He feels - “Nadine, I  _ will _ fix this.”

 

He knows he is being greedy. He knows he is asking a terrible thing of her. He knows he is asking her to endure twenty more years of this - this thing that has already almost taken her half a dozen times, and will only get worse.

 

He wants to pretend that it is for the research - and it’s not that it’s  _ not _ . The two of them, together - they could learn more about the pools in twenty years than had been known in human history. He knows they could.

 

But there are other ways. Other subjects.

 

If she asked to go to the Ethereal plane now, he would swallow his own heart and he would take her. (If he sees that horrible light in her eyes again -  _ ever _ again - deadline or no, deadly fight or no, he will do it, then and there. He  _ will not lose her.)  _ It is her choice.

 

But he has to ask.


End file.
